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I had been thinking that maybe I’d been slacking a little in the photography department. You know, slowing down some. I just checked and I took 1,420 exposures during the month of April. So yeah, there’s that. I guess I’m not slowing down so much after all.

EDIT: I just checked and I uploaded 49 pictures to Flickr during April. I’m gonna let you do the math on that.

Going on to talk more about pictures, yes I am. Ms. Sparkles Thomas has been in possession of Brother Thomas’s camera for a while now and coming out with some remarkable results. A few of them have caught my eye – specifically, this one (because of the tonal range) and this one (because of the color of the sky). That’s not to say that her other pictures don’t have merit – no no, apparently all members of Clan Thomas are impressively artistically inclined. It’s just those two really kept calling me back and finally it really sunk in that part of what was special about those pictures was that they’re film. You know, real film. Once I realized this I told Trey that I was going to steal his old Canon film Rebel from Henry (since my lenses will fit it hooray) and maybe run a couple of rolls through it. You know, just to see. See if I can make things as pretty as Sarah Sparkles does.

Apparently all this photography-think has affected my studies ’cause there’s gonna be a B in the grades this semester. Qué lástima.

EDIT NUMBER TWO: I forgot to mention that my cat’s new hobbies are eating bugs and sleeping on top of the kitchen cabinets.

OKAY SO HEY GET THIS this is FASCINATING (you may stop reading now if you haven’t already) the other day I was pulling on my sock and apparently the edge of my pinkie toenail is sharp and I totally cut my thumb. Can you believe it? Isn’t that fascinating? I somehow managed to hurt myself with myself. Impressive!

So! Because of this I tend to offer my services to my friends. “If you ever need anything photographed just give me a call.” Well, obviously, most people don’t just ‘need something photographed’ but you know, it’s out there. Anyway, my friend Chris was the first one to take me up on that offer. Wait, no, that’s not true – there’s someone else that needs something done (HI MARY) but that’s gonna require actual thought and setup and caution and professionalism. Chris just wanted to go take some pictures.

And we did, we went and took a bloody ton, and of course I learned a million things while I was doing it. One thing in particular I learned is that my hands are not as steady as I give them credit for. Better to have high ISO noise than blurry shots. I will remember this. Regardless, Chris was pleased with the results enough to say, “i’m going through them now and it’s like christmas, even though i was there and i know what’s coming.”

Yes. Productive day all around. I learned things. I made a friend happy. I have more goods in my little fake portfolio. I have a contact that can say, “Yes, I took Kevin up on his offer and the results were magnificent, darling, you simply *must* let him shoot you” (NOTE: Chris does not actually talk like this), and then most importantly I learned things. Free experience! What could be better?

The gas station convenience stores are calling me. I have the desire to go out and find the strangest old-school drink that I can. None of this Red Bull / Rockstar energy drink crap. I’m gonna go find something like Jolt Cola or Peach Nehi or Faygo Redpop or something else equally wonderfully nasty. When I find it, I’m gonna drink it, and when I drink it it’s gonna be good.

Edit: found it. Well, not it exactly, but something relatively esoteric.

I realize that you’re dying to know if I’ve gotten enough funds together to buy that new lens I was talking about. Well, after getting rid of a few superfluous possessions, raiding my massive change box (thanks, blackjack), and analyzing my finances the answer is yes. I’m very pleased. The lens is on order and I can’t wait. I’m so happy.

You know what else makes me happy? My good friend Liz Kassera. We are Super Best Gemini Friends Forever because we share the same birthday – to the year, even, not just the day of the month. Our birthday is coming up in just a month and a half. I can’t believe it. I’m just glad that now I have someone who knows exactly how old I feel.

Speaking of feeling, I feel a little bad. I just spent a lot of money on that lens. I may not be able to buy Liz anything nice for our birthday. However, there’s an upside to this. The only physical possession in the world that I want right now is that lens, and … well, I just bought it. What I’m saying is that there’s nothing I need. There’s nothing I even really want.

So I ask of you, my bestest friends and relatives and friends’ relatives and relatively friendly people, please don’t get me anything for my birthday. Instead, I want to ask you to get it for Liz instead. Send my birthday presents to Liz! Thing is, Liz is a good person too, and she spends her time thinking about others more than she does thinking about herself. That’s why she’s doing the Breast Cancer 3-Day – a 60-mile walk to show her dedication to helping make someone else’s life better. That’s more than I’m doing. That’s more than most of us are doing.

I’m being serious here. For my birthday I want nothing more than for you to donate to Liz’s walk. It’ll make me a lot happier than a birthday cake and some books and DVDs and whatever else. It’ll make me happy. It’ll make Liz happy. Best of all, it’ll help change someone’s life.

It is a promo site for a new book. I’m going to quote what someone else wrote, because it is both better worded than what I would come up with, and also I am lazy. Thank you for the words, eddo.

“The really intriguing thing about the site is that it breaks pretty much every rule that contemporary web designers have for effective site design. The site is a linear progression of images, essentially 30 splash pages one right after another. It doesn’t have any navigation except for forward/back buttons; you can’t just jump to whatever page you want. [She] barely mentions anything about the book and only then near the end of the 30 pages. There’s no text…it’s all images, which means that the site will be all but invisible to search engines. No web designer worth her salt would ever recommend building a site like this to a client.

Yet it works because the story pulls you along so well; July’s using the site’s narrative to sell a book that is, presumably, chock full of the same sort of narrative. If you think the site sucks and quickly click away, chances are you’re not going to like the book either…it’s the perfect self-selection mechanism. The No One Belongs Here More Than You site is a lesson for web designers: the point is not to make sites that follow all the rules but to make sites that will best accomplish the primary objectives of the site.”

This mainly pertains to you Cookeville folk ’cause I don’t really intend to mail these, but if someone’s begging enough I’m sure I’ll be accommodating.

I have the following pictures printed out by the photo place, meaning these aren’t just some inkjet papers I did in my apartment or something, they’re the real thing. I got them printed a while back when I was determining if I wanted to make a portfolio book, and if so was the quality at the local photo place good enough (answer: yes) and so on and so on.

See, the thing is I don’t really need ’em, and they’re just sitting here taking up very valuable desk space. The only problem with them is that they’re not cropped to 8×10 or anything. Basically they’re printed on 8×10 paper but most of them don’t fit that ratio, so there’s a lot of white space. If you’re good with matting then knock yourself out. Or you can just hang it up in your cubicle, I don’t mind.

So here’s your chance to own, free of charge, some of the first pictures I ever printed. If you want it, comment here on which one you want, and I’ll give them away (IF ANYONE EVEN WANTS THEM *sob*) in order of request.

I got five, and they are:

Library in St. Johns, Portland, OR:

CLAIMED Modified VW bug in Portland, OR:

CLAIMED Tennessee Central 509 here in Cookeville:

CLAIMED Broad Street at night, here in Cookeville:

CLAIMED And finally, the one all the girls can fight over:

So give me a yell if you want any of these. I’m going to pretend like you’ll actually take me up on this, so I’ll say “one per, please.”

So this it. My transformation to snobbery is apparently complete. Wait, no, it’s not snobbery because I don’t care how anyone else does it, just how I do it. That makes me … um … what’s that word? A connoisseur? Afficionado? Those words both sound too snobby. Maybe I am a snob.

Wait, no, I still don’t care how you drink your coffee.

AAAANYWAY so yeah I broke my French press the other day. It was the one that Henry and Heather gave me for Christmas and that totally ruined me on coffee. I thought for sure I could never find time in the mornings to boil water and grind and steep and then drink but after Day One I was hooked. Then I had to go and break the glass and deprive myself of delicious rich hot coffee, so I dug out my old four-cup coffee maker.

Deprive myself I did, because now I finally understand what Henry has been going on about regarding cheap coffee makers and how they don’t get the water nearly hot enough. I got out Mr. Coffee. I put in the normal amount of grounds and got back tea. I was incensed to say the least. How dare you decide not to make acceptible brew anymore, Mr. Coffee? What’s up with that? The next morning I put in some extra grounds, maybe one-and-a-half times what I thought I should, and still got tea. Darker tea, but tea nonetheless. I think I might have cried a little bit.

While discussing this over beans last night I was informed by Stacie that over at Find-A-Bear where she works they sell French presses. I left campus on break today and went over to save myself from the tiny kitchen dictator that is Mr. Coffee and ran straight into the arms of a sleek metal and glass beauty.

Tonight I found myself fantasizing about just how good my coffee was going to be in the morning and decided I couldn’t wait. OH YES that’s why I posted a picture of the food, it’s because it didn’t feel right to drink coffee with normal dinner so I had to make some breakfast.

It didn’t really occur to me to write about this until after the picture was taken and the food devoured so you’re left with an image wherein you can’t even really see my new French press. But you know what? That doesn’t matter, you know what they look like anyway.

The point is that I am a changed man. I drank some Folgered-up swill from a commercial Bunn maker in New Orleans, and then I gradually progressed to buying and grinding beans while in Portland, and came back here to witness the sad end of Gridges, graduated to a press (THANKS HENRY FOR RUINING ME) and now tried to take a step back and it was painful. I guess this is it. I’m really a coffee snob now.

All you local folk’ll remember dear old Hidden Hollow. You do remember Hidden Hollow, right? Created by renowned madman Arda Lee it has entertained and creeped out children for many years now. Well, when old Arda died it went to his kids, and they’re getting a bit long in the tooth theyselves, or so I hear, and now the entire property, all 55 acres or so, is up for auction.

So who wants to go with me? Mark it on your calendars – Saturday, May 5th at 10:00 AM. It may be your last chance to say goodbye to an old friend. You know, the kind of old friend that would show up sometimes waaay too late in the evening and sit around your living room and eat pieces of candy all covered in lint and talk unintelligibly so that you weren’t sure if they were drunk and just where in God’s name did they get that candy anyway? Was that from their pocket or something? but they’re a good friend anyway, they’ve been there for you since … forever.

But they won’t be around much longer.

And besides, going to an auction for something you don’t intend to buy isn’t that strange, is it? That’s how I got this picture – how else would I have gained entrance to such a run-down old building? Legally?